Ernie Harwell

I'm not sure how I should go about this. I'm a Tigers fan, thus, I am an obligatory Ernie Harwell fan. He's revered by both Tigers fans and the national baseball media. He's quiet, unassuming, humble, and always went out of his way to keep the focus of anything he did on or near a baseball diamond on the actual game. Like the cold rebuffings he kept giving when brought into the booth by FOX during the 2006 playoffs. He seemed uncomfortable and unwilling to give tales upon tales of "how things used to be" when he started and, rather, wished the focus of everything was on the game at hand.

But here's the tricky part: I'm just 23. I don't listen to games on the radio and have grown up in an age where baseball is readily available on television. Ernie broadcast his last game as a full-time announcer on September 29th, 2002. I was 16.

I liked baseball when I was 16. I also liked girls, music, friends, and doing anything I could to cause trouble. I have always been a big sports fan, but it wasn't until I was around 19 that I became a baseball fanatic and fell in love with the numbers-side of the game of baseball.

Needless to say, I am not a baseball fan born and raised by Ernie Harwell. Yet, I think the biggest compliment that some anonymous blogger from the complete other side of the state like myself can give him is this: I didn't grow up in the glow of a radio listening to Ernie paint a baseball picture in my mind, yet I've got more of an attachment to Ernie than I've got to Mario Impemba, Rod Allen, Josh Lewin, Kirk Gibson, Ken Daniels, Mickey Redmond, or any other broadcaster who's ever come in, around, or through Detroit on their broadcasting career -- regardless of sport.

I don't even have an Ernie Harwell memory. I'm sure there's plenty of people who remember this one specific call from Ernie in this one specific game in this one specific year (probably 1984). I don't. I have the couple of times he's been in the booth filling in while Rod has been gone, or the aforementioned FOX interview during the '06 playoffs. But, here's my dirty little secret: I wasn't really paying attention then. I was busy watching baseball.

I guess in this entire ramble-y, poorly written post what I'm confessing to is just wishing to have been born in a different era. The era of television. Where you don't need the game painted in words for you. Where you don't, actually, need anyone at all to talk about the game. Because you can see it. In an air conditioned house with a beverage and good food.

Through all of the advantages I've got in getting a baseball fix -- the internet, television, MLB.tv, the Extra Innings package on cable -- I'd like to have fallen asleep listening to Ernie Harwell, like some got to do.